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the world or books about Native American tribes. Things that would be for educational purpose are exempted; biology textbooks, for instance, would be also be exempted,” added on Ms. Chelsea Pulley, another of the school’s librarians. Not only does this bill impact the library, but it also impacts the English department. “[The librarians] were focusing specifically on the books because that’s what we provide to students, but movie adaptations (like Romeo and Juliet) that don’t impact the library directly necessarily still affect the English Department, a larger impact of the bill,” said Pulley. Counselors here at LHS have shown discontentment with the restriction of books and express that information about situations and topics should not be restricted. “Banning/restricting books because it makes others uncomfortable does not make the information/situations within them go away. If we stop talking about sensitive topics like racism, sexual assault, genocide and many other complex issues, they are not going to go away; they will still exist. We have to face the discomfort to keep it from happening again,” said Tricia Hays, a LHS counselor.

“Because SB775 is a legal issue and there are legal repercussions, that is taken into account,” said Pulley. “But we want students to have a library that is representative of them and their interests and we’re doing our best to provide those resources for them.”

“I am not a fan of banning books in any manner, and I do think some books that are pretty explicit should be available in the library, but not necessarily a required part of the curriculum,” said Mr. Benjamin Smith, another LHS counselor. Not only has this impacted students’ access to literature, but it has left the librarians with the stress of pulling each individual book from the shelves. “We’re all checking once, checking twice just to make sure that we’re complying while still looking out for our students and making sure we’ve got all the materials they need. It’s just an added layer of extra work that goes into it to make sure that we’re not violating anything,” said Pulley. Even though the extra work is proving to be a time restraint, the librarians are making sure that the students are still their first priority. “Because SB775 is a legal issue and there are legal repercussions, that is taken into account,” said Pulley. “But we want students to have a library that is representative of them and their interests and we’re doing our best to provide those resources for them.” 7 News 11.16.22

Lindbergh left “frustrated” with the effects from the national labor shortage

Van & Lindsey Pham InDesign Editor & Staff Editor How the national labor shortage has affected Lindbergh High School

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “In 2021, more than 47 million workers quit their jobs.” This impacted the U.S. economy greatly and there have been shortages in almost every industry, especially in education. Brian Mckenney, who has been Lindbergh’s chief human resources officer for the past eight years, agrees that the national labor shortage has been affecting Lindbergh High School. He explained how jobs in the education system have been on a decline and how Covid-19 changed the workforce, most prominently in education. “Covid definitely has affected us. Due to the pandemic, staff were doing their jobs remotely. Now, these essential people are not coming in to do these jobs due to many different factors,” McKenney said. McKenney explained how the national labor shortage has affected schools everywhere with the increasing scarcity of people going into teaching careers. Luckily, Lindbergh has been fortunate to not have been affected by the national teacher shortage. “We are fortunate to not have a shortage of teachers. We actually had 60 open teaching spots that were all filled, but the custodial staff, food service workers and substitute teachers are the groups that have been the most affected by the labor shortage at Lindbergh,” Mckenney said.

Problems have arisen with the limited number of workers. These groups’ shortages in staff have been noticed by students, teachers and administrators. Mckenney said one of the problems that have been apparent directly affected the students at Lindbergh.

“It’s not ideal that we have to send students to the commons to be monitored by a substitute teacher when there are other groups of students that are also being watched over by that same substitute.”

-Brian Mckenney-

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News 11.16.22 “It’s not ideal that we have to send students to the commons to be monitored by the substitute teacher when there are other groups of students that are also being watched over by that same substitute,” Mckenney said. Having this as a solution works when there are multiple teachers gone and multiple groups of students need to be watched over by a single substitute teacher when there aren’t enough substitutes to monitor all of the students in their original classrooms. Unfortunately, due to the circumstances, it’s hard to find solutions that work efficiently. Having these students being monitored in the commons is not ideal. Mckenney and others in his department have been planning for solutions that help alleviate the lack of substitutes issue. “A proctoring substitute would be a substitute that would be paid more and specialize in proctoring students in a large space, such as the commons, and be trained in how to help these students with things like with Canvas or assignments that are assigned to do,” Mckenney stated. This doesn’t eliminate the problem of having students in the commons when they need a substitute. This solution could be a promising fix to help aid when there aren’t enough substitutes to go around to sub these classes and these proctoring subs are able to help students more with their school work than their traditional counterparts.

In the commons, classes of students are monitored by a substitute teacher.